Cloud based location shifting service

Abstract

A method and system for enabling a user to access video capture services from a home market while temporarily located in outside of it, i.e., roaming. The user temporarily located outside of their home market uses a regional system as a proxy in a home market in which the user is able to receive regional content. The regional system transfers the regional content to the roaming user.

What is claimed is: 
     
       1. A national system for streaming content to a user, the national system comprising:
 regional systems for capturing and distributing requested broadcast television content transmissions to the user from the home markets associated with each of the regional systems, wherein each of the regional capture and distribution systems comprises an array of antennas, with each of the antennas being able to capture broadcast television content transmissions from television broadcasting entities located within the respective market of that regional capture and distribution system, wherein the regional capture and distribution systems transcode and store an individual copy of the broadcast television content transmissions for the user with the regional capture and distribution systems transferring the individual copy of the requested transcoded content transmissions to the user, wherein the regional systems capture the content transmissions with antennas that are uniquely assigned to the user; and 
 a qualifying system that determines geographical locations of the user by accessing a global position system, accessing cellular phone systems, or looking up Internet protocol addresses assigned to the user in an address geographical location directory and determines the home market for the user, in response to determining that the geographic location of the user is located outside of a geographic region of the user's respective home market, the qualifying system then passes the user to the regional systems covering the home market of the user and restricts access of the user only to the regional systems located within the respective home markets of the user. 
 
     
     
       2. The system according to  claim 1 , wherein the regional systems transfer the requested broadcast television content transmissions to the users via Internet streaming. 
     
     
       3. The system according to  claim 1 , wherein the qualifying system determines the home market of the user based on account information associated with the user. 
     
     
       4. The system according to  claim 1 , wherein the qualifying system determines the home market of the user based user selections. 
     
     
       5. The system according to  claim 1 , further comprising broadcasting entities that broadcast over the air broadcasts that are captured and encoded by the regional systems. 
     
     
       6. The system according to  claim 5 , wherein the broadcasting entities are television networks transmitting over the air broadcasts. 
     
     
       7. The system according to  claim 1 , wherein the regional systems are geographical proxies in the respective home markets of the users. 
     
     
       8. The system according to  claim 1 , wherein the regional systems are nodes of a content delivery network. 
     
     
       9. The system according to  claim 8 , further comprising dedicated links that connect the regional systems and transfer data between the regional systems. 
     
     
       10. The system according to  claim 9 , wherein the dedicated links transfer the user requested content transmissions to local regional systems and the local regional systems then stream the user requested content transmission to the users via the Internet streaming.